high-octane dev teams: three things you can do to improve code quality

High OctaneDev Teams

Brendan Humphreys

High Octane? Concepts / History Four rules of code review Rik Tamm-Daniels, Attivio, Inc.

High Octane?

Machines vs Humans

Smarter Tools

• Checkstyle, Lint, PMD

• Findbugs

• Clover

Continuous Feedback

Feedback and Audience

Adoption in Atlassian

#1:Strive for Ego-Free Reviews

#1: Ego-Free Reviews


• No personal Pronouns



• No point scoring



• No point scoring

• Moderator to police

#2:Don’t be a Pedant

#2: Don’t be a Pedant


• Use tools to enforce coding style, catch common errors


• Use tools to enforce coding style, catch common errors

• Look for the forrest, not the trees

#3: Find Problems,

Not Solutions

#3: Find Problems, Not Solutions


• Except for trivial fixes


• Except for trivial fixes

• Pair program instead

#4: Embrace Feedback

•Especially if you are a junior developer

•You will learn to love it!

#4: Embrace Feedback

Agile Quality: High-Octane Style

Rik Tamm-Daniels VP, Engineering June 1st, 2009

©2007Confiden,al&Proprietary.AllRightsReserved.

•  Located in Newton, MA •  Founded August 2007 •  45+ Employees •  What we do: Unified Information Access

About Attivio


•  Attivioʼs Active Intelligence Engine –  Unified Information Access Platform –  Query Unstructured and Structured Information with the

Precision of SQL and the Fuzziness of Search •  Shipped Product (OEM and Direct)

–  Maintenance Release Window at the end of each sprint –  Minor Release every 3-4 months –  Major Releases Every 12-18 months

•  Product Specs: –  100% Java –  200 MB Install –  200K Lines of Code (8000+ automated tests)

What are we building?


•  Our Team –  15 Engineers (10 very senior) – Expertise in

Enterprise Search, Data Warehousing, ETL, Linguistics, Data Mining

•  Our Process –  Agile Development

•  4 week Sprints: 3 weeks of design/code/document/test and 1 week of “Reflection”

–  Agile QA

What makes Attivio High-Octane?


•  Atlassian Tools installed on Day 1 –  Bamboo –  JIRA –  Confluence –  Fisheye –  Clover –  First Bamboo build was Green!

Attivio and Atlassian: How it all began


•  Evolutionary Process –  Sprint-by-sprint incremental process changes

•  Reliance on Tools –  Process Tools: JIRA, Confluence, Clover, Bamboo,

Fisheye –  Dev Tools: SVN, Ant, Eclipse, JMeter

•  Comprehensive Quality Strategy

Our Process


•  Maintaining “Releaseability” of code –  Ensure unit tests are built concurrently with code –  Have a “light” Release Process –  Getting green builds

•  Where does QA fit in? –  Options

•  QA “follows” development by one sprint •  Use a traditional QA waterfall model step •  Our Model: a QA sprint before each release

•  What do QA Engineers do? –  Our model: Expert team for critical testing hotspots, critical

performance tests, higher-level system testing

Agile Quality Challenges


•  We focus on three metrics of Code Quality: –  How much code is tested and how often? –  How quickly can we detect defects? –  How quickly can we resolve defects?

•  We address these with: –  Continuous Integration –  Code Coverage –  Unified Testing

Agile + Quality


•  We use Bamboo for Continuous Integration, Nightly Builds and System Test Builds –  Continuous Builds run on each check-in –  Nightly Builds of each Branch are scheduled and

staggered –  System Test Builds depend upon Nightly Builds

•  All Bamboo Agents run on VMWare Virtual Machines

Continuous Integration - Build Process


Linuxx64VM

DefaultAgent

Linuxx64VM

Con,nuousTrunkBuild

FullNightlyBuild

Linuxx64VM

OldVersionCon,nuous

Linuxx64VM

QAInstall/SystemTests

Linuxx86VM

FullNightlyBuild

Windowsx86VM

CodeCheck

FullNightlyBuild

Windowsx64VM

FullNightlyBuild

Solarisx64VM

FullNightlyBuild

Build Agent Configuration BuildAgent

BuildType


Branching Methodology

Source:Collabnet


•  We use the Unstable Branching Strategy –  Fits with the agile methodology better that the Agile

Branching strategy •  No need to deal with too many branches •  Since our modules are already self contained we are

continually integrating all modules right in trunk •  Less merging more branching •  Ready to release code at any time without merging or

branching –  In large part because of our test coverage –  Having system, integration, smoke and performance testing as

part of our daily activity

Branching Methodology


•  High Coverage numbers have produced low-defect releases

•  We ship with better than 80% coverage for ALL Releases

•  80% based on industry best practices •  Clover produces reports for our core and add-on

modules •  Integration Points: GUnit (grails), Selenium/

JUnit, Fluint (Flex)

Code Coverage


•  Run separately from other builds to reduce build times

•  Produces Code Coverage Artifacts –  Clover –  Cobertura –  Findbugs

•  We donʼt use Bambooʼs integrated Clover Report because it doesnʼt ft our build directory structure (each module built separately)

Code Coverage Build


Code Coverage Build Artifacts


•  Unified Testing Defined: –  Common Infrastructure (Execution, Reporting)

•  Execution: Bamboo •  Reporting: Clover/Bamboo

–  Single point of defect detection and investigation •  Bamboo + JIRA and Fisheye Integration

•  Benefits –  Fewer systems for QA to learn –  Easier to maintain than traditional QA environments –  Consistent format for defect reporting and notification –  Unified view of system quality –  Easier to identify testing gaps

Unified Testing


•  JUnit - unit and integration tests •  Custom ant-based install automation framework

and system test framework –  Generic Ant Build Model

•  Heavy use of MacroDefs and AntCalls •  Custom Ant Tasks

–  Mimics JUnit response and output format –  Can be run on build box or run on multiple build boxes

(multi-node tests, performance tests)

Unified Testing – How we do it


•  The combination of Bamboo and Clover give us a complete view of product quality –  High-level build status –  Test Failure Reports –  Build Logs –  Build Artifacts (Clover, Findbugs)

•  JIRA and Fisheye integration allows us to quickly identify and resolve problems –  JIRA tickets –  Check-in Diffs

Unified Testing - Reporting


Unified Testing Demo


•  Being a High-Octane Dev Team requires focus on Quality

•  A High-Octane Agile Quality Program Needs: –  Continuous Integration for Early Defect Detection and

Resolution –  A High-level of Code Coverage –  Unified Test Execution for Simplicity –  Unified Test Reporting for Visibility –  Tooling to Tie it all Together

Conclusions


Discussion Time!

high-octane dev teams: three things you can do to improve code quality

Technology

tools process tools

continuous builds

qa sprint

releaseability of code

lines of code

metrics of code quality

process agile development

atlassian tools